turning depression into wisdom: what lincoln can teach contemporary college studentson

8/10/2019 Turning depression into wisdom: What Lincoln can teach contemporary college studentson

1/12

http://collegepubs.com/turning_depression_into_wisdomTURNING DEPRESSION INTO WISDOM

PR:1 07.28 MENTAL HEALTH

September 7, 2007

KEY CONCEPT

The current focus in higher education on students with mental disabilitiesshould include studying ways successful adaptation to a

mental disability can add strength and wisdom to life.

Turning depression into wisdom: What Lincoln can teach contemporarycollege students

(Revised and expanded from an address by Pavelaat Virginia Tech University, July 13, 2007)

Most of our focus in this symposium has been on a horrific act of violence by astudent with a mental disorder. We know, of course, that the connection betweenmental illness and violence is tenuous --insufficient to draw firm conclusionsabout the future behavior of any particular student, especially if there has beenno related pattern of substance abuseor past violence. Still, our discussionsabout mental illness have focused on the potential for destruction. I propose to
http://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Pavelahttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Pavelahttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Pavelahttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Pavela


2/12

explore an instance when successful adaptation to a mental disorder addeddepth and wisdom to life.

In one of the documents distributed today I posed a question to which youalready know the answer:

Please consider the following profile of a troubled young adult, based on anactual case history:

Talked about suicide for weeks at a time. Reportedly wrote poetry about thrusting a dagger in his heart and

"draw[ing] blood in showers!" Was known to "go crazy," requiring the removal of knives and

dangerous items from his room.

Purchased opiates and cocaine. Wandered around with a gun during periods of suicidal ideation. Collapsed while speaking openly of his hopelessness and thoughts of

suicide. Was eventually diagnosed with "recurrent major depression."

Who was this risk to himself and to society?

The answer isLincoln. My primary source isShenk's award winning bookLincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His

Greatness (2006) and, secondarily, the analysis ofMiller, author of Lincoln'sVirtues, (2002 ); Doris Kearns Goodwin, author ofTeamof Rivals: The PoliticalGenius of Abraham Lincoln (2006) and Carl Sandburg, The Prairie Years and theWar Years, V.3 (1960).

Lincoln's iconic status can be an impediment to educators. Students are rightlyskeptical about what they can learn from god-like figures immortalized in granite.Recent scholarship, however, has opened a new window onLincolnas aperson--his emotional intelligence, and his adaptive skills in coping withadversity, failure, loss, and depression. These are precisely the qualities thatneed emphasis in the present generation. They're also qualities best understoodin the context of a life story, even if the surface of the story is as well known asthat of Abraham Lincoln.

There's little doubt Lincolnfaced a recurring battle with clinical depression. Aletter he wrote in 1841 reveals the depth of the condition:
http://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincolnhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Shenkhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Shenkhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Millerhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Millerhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Teamhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Teamhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincolnhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincolnhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincolnhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincolnhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincolnhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincolnhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Teamhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Millerhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Shenkhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Lincoln


3/12

For not giving you a general summary of news, you must pardon me; it is not inmy power to do so. I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel wereequally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerfulface on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode Ishall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears tome. The matter you speak of on my account, you may attend to as you say,unless you shall hear of my condition forbidding it. I say this, because I fear Ishall be unable to attend to any bussiness [sic] here, and a change of scenemight help me. If I could be myself, I would rather remain at homewithLogan. Ican write no more. Your friend, as ever---

A. LINCOLN

A fellow legislator in Illinois (Robert L. Wilson) saw the extent of Lincoln's

"melancholy" in 1836:

In a conversation with him about that time (1836), he told me that although heappeared to enjoy life rapturously, still he was the victim of terrible melancholy.He sought company, and indulged in fun and hilarity without restraint, or stint asto time. Still when by himself, he told me that he was so overcome with mentaldepression, that he never dare carry a knife in his pocket. As long as I wasintimately acquainted with him, previous to the commencement of the practice ofthe law, he never carried a pocket knife, still he was not a misanthropic. He waskind and tender in his treatment to others.

Multiple observers have referred to a "mental health crisis" on college campuses.Whether or not such a crisis exists, students have much to gain by studying theadaptive strategies of a person who turned a mood disorderinto a source ofstrength and wisdom for himself and the nation.

How did Lincoln do it?

[1] Learning to learn from suffering.

Lincoln had the courage to go to the core of his suffering and seek a solution.That solution entailed defining and pursuing a high calling. Shenk and biographerWard H. Lamon cite the following statement Lincoln reportedly made to his friendJoshua Speed (the quotation is from Lamon's Life of Abraham Lincoln):
http://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Loganhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Loganhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Logan


4/12

[H]e toldSpeed, referring probably to his inclination to commit suicide, 'that hehad done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived, and toconnect his name with the events transpiring in his day and generation and soimpress himself upon them as to link his name with something that wouldredound to the interest of his fellow man was what he desired to life for.' [H]e[later] reminded Speed [of this conversation] at the time. . . he issued theEmancipation Proclamation.

The current generation of college students seems especially interested ineducation as an instrumental means to "making a good living." One of our dutiesas educators is to ask probing questions designed to help them and ourselvesdefine a good life. Likewise, it may not be possible or desirable to root out thesometimes problematical inclination to "link [our] names" with somethingimportant (an impulse typically turned to destructive ends in the school shooting

phenomenon). That's a quality of human nature found in varying degrees in everyculture and individual. It remains in everyone's interest, however, to help youngpeople--especially those most anxious to garner respect from their peers--tounderstand that lasting respect comes not out of adolescent images of power ormachismo, but the accomplishment of something that "redound[s] to the interestof [their ] fellow man." Harvard University psychiatristGeorge Vaillant made asimilar point in starker terms when he wrote that the therapist's (and educator's)goal is not to find and advance perfect specimens (if such beings exist), but to"help the paranoid's projection become a novel, an eccentric's sexual fantasybecome a sculpture, and a delinquent's impulse to murder evolve into creativelawmaking . . . " (Adaptation to Life, 1977).

[2] Defining a goal.

Deciding to pursue a "high calling" requires particularity. What, precisely, is theaim? The answer in Lincoln's case was the fundamental principle of humanequality set forth in the Declaration of Independence. This is what he said in aFebruary 22, 1861 "unprepared speech" in Independence Hall, Philadelphia:

[A]ll the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have beenable to draw them, from the sentiments which originated, and were given to theworld from this hall in which we stand. I have never had a feeling politically thatdid not spring from the sentiments embodied in theDeclarationofIndependence . . . I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea itwas that kept thisConfederacyso long together. It was not the mere matter of
http://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Speedhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Speedhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Confederacyhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Confederacyhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Confederacyhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Speed


5/12

the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in thatDeclarationgiving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to theworld for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time theweights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should havean equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in thatDeclarationofIndependence.

Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I willconsider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If itcan't be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But, if this country cannotbe saved without giving up that principle---I was about to say I would rather beassassinated on this spot than to surrender it.

The danger of not defining fundamental goals is captured by the expression:

"having lost sight of our objective we redoubled our efforts." In truth, people whoskate on the surface of life soon tire of extraordinary effort. One of the primaryaims of a liberal education is to help students define objectives --if only asworking hypotheses-- that will inspire commitment to a cause greater thanthemselves. It is when they "forget themselves" in such a cause that thedestructive pain of self-absorption subsides.

[3] Thinking about thinking.

Joshua Wolf Shenk discussed Lincoln's reference in the First Inaugural to "thebetter angels of our nature." Those words came from a man who appreciated thecompeting and contradictory claims of the human psyche. But there are otherexamples in Lincoln's political writing reflecting the insight that learning how tothink could be essential to survival. In an 1862 message to Congress Lincolnwrote that:

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. Theoccasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As ourcase is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall

ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

What Lincoln saw as essential to national survival was also a quality he used tosave himself. Psychologists and psychiatrists refer in this regard to thestrengthening of a "higher" or "observer" self, able to step back from andevaluate the immediate flow of emotion. It's a quality captured in a December1974 interview by Sam Keen with Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli :
http://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declarationhttp://search.conduit.com/Results.aspx?ctid=CT3327494&searchsource=55&UM=2&q=%20Declaration


6/12

I believe the will is the Cinderella of modern psychology, It has been relegated tothe kitchen. The Victorian notion that will power could overcome all obstacleswas destroyed by Freud's discovery of unconscious motivation. But,unfortunately, this led modern psychology into a deterministic view of man as abundle of competing forces with no centre. This is contrary to every humanbeing's direct experience of himself. At some point, perhaps in a crisis whendanger threatens, an awakening occurs in which the individual discovers his will.. . With the certainty that one has a will comes the realization of the intimateconnection between the will and the self . . . It is self-consciousness that setsman apart from animals. Human beings are aware but also know that they areaware." [emphasis added]

This insight led to Assagioli's wonderful aphorism: "I have emotions, but I am notmy emotions."

We published a case study of a college student suicide (drawing upon notebookmarginalia the victim left behind) in our book Questions and Answers on CollegeStudent Suicide (2006). The student showed heartbreaking evidence he wasbeginning to use, but had not yet developed the potential of the "observer self":

"Can I ever teach? Will I ever cure stuttering? Job interviews, phone calls. Peoplenotice or am I blowing this out of proportion?" [emphasis supplied].

It's commonplace in higher education to speak of teaching students "how to

think." This is not an aim to be attempted lightly. It should be one of our highestpriorities--a phenomenon that must be continuously studied, evaluated, andrevitalized. The goal goes beyond career preparation. For human beings,thinking about thinking is necessary to life itself.

[4] Nurturing a love of learning.

People who knew Lincoln well referred to him as a "stubborn reader." WilliamLee Miller provides this description:

It would be quite a study to go through the available record to identify all theplaces, times, and postures in which those who had known Lincoln in Indianaand in New Salem remembered him reading a book: reading while the horserests at the end of a row, reading while walking down the street, reading under atree, reading while others went to dances, reading with his legs up as high as his


7/12

head, reading between customers in the post office, reading snatched at lengthon the counter of the store.

There may be many reasons why Lincoln loved reading. For all his outwardgregariousness he was a profoundly solitary man, rarely revealing himself toothers. Reading was an antidote to loneliness and a way for a precocious mind tofind worthy companionship. Lincoln's love of reading also had much to do with arelentless drive for self-improvement--especially after he had defined a highergoal for his life. It's disorienting in comparison to contemporary politicalleadership to discover that Lincoln regarded one of his greatest personalaccomplishments during his time in Congress as "study[ing] and nearlymaster[ing] the six books of Euclid."

Troubled college students sometimes make the mistake of regarding reading,

studying, and learning as stressful diversions from their inner turmoil. Theopposite is true. Few pursuits are more conducive to mental health than adetermined and disciplined focus on better understanding and appreciating the"outside" world. A mind focused exclusively on itself is wandering in barrenterrain.

[5] Blending f riendship, solitude, and empathy.

Joshua Wolf Shenk cited a letter Lincoln wrote to his best friend Joshua Speed in1842, shortly after Speed was married. Lincoln was 33 years old at the time:

How miserably things seem to be arranged in this world. If we have no friends,we have no pleasure, and if we have them we are sure to lose them, and bedoubly pained by the loss . . . I feel somewhat jealous of both of you now [Speedand his wife]; you will be so exclusively concerned with one another, that I shallbe forgotten entirely.

Reading that wonderfully needy letter and visiting the Lincoln Memorial severalhours later--as I recently did--is a disconcerting experience. Lincoln as a human

being and Lincoln portrayed in a monument (modeled on the Temple of Zeus inOlympia, Greece) evoke two distinctly different feelings. The former better suitsour educational aims.

Lincoln's bond with Joshua Speed was exceptional. The depth of the relationshipmay be associated with Lincoln's need for companionship during a time of


8/12

personal doubt and turmoil. But, as suggested earlier, Lincoln also found solacein solitude, especially as he grew older. Shenk wrote:

Lincoln did little to cultivate intimacy with his wife, or with any other person. Hiscolleagues on the [law] circuit, though they liked and admired him, also felt animpassible distance from him. The one relationship that had obviouslytranscended business, with Joshua Speed, was by the late 1840s clearly a thingof the past.

Why did the relationship with Speed wane? One answer --suggested by Shenkand other scholars--is that Speed eventually became a slaveholder. As much asLincoln valued Speed's friendship, he valued the sentiments in the Declaration ofIndependence more.

One quality in Lincoln that never seemed to diminish was a capacity forempathy. It was evident in his youth (evidenced by multiple stories of hisrescuing animals in distress) and could be seen in his conscious effort to see andunderstand the perspectives of those which whom he disagreed.

Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that:

Unusual among antislavery orators in the 1850s, Lincoln sought to comprehendthe Southerners' position through empathy rather than castigate slave owners ascorrupt and un-Christian men. He argued, 'They are just what we would be in

their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would notintroduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.' Itwas useless, he explained in another address, to employ 'thundering tones ofanathema and denunciation,' for denunciation would be met by denunciation,'anathema with anathema.'

Far better, he believed, to reach into the heart of one's opponents--which, ofcourse, he memorably did in his second Inaugural . . .

The capacity for empathy also helped Lincoln moderate his own faults. Kearnswrote:

To be sure, there were times when Lincoln lost his temper, but then he wouldpromptly follow up with a kind gesture. 'I was a little cross,' he wrote one of hisgenerals, 'I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to


9/12

keep it up.' By such gestures, repeated again and again, he repaired injuredfeelings that might have escalated into lasting animosity.

What insights can we explore with students about these complex characteristicsin Lincoln's life? One answer is that simplistic bromides in self-help manuals failto capture the complexity of the human heart. Love and friendship are essentialto happiness (as Lincoln felt intensely), but exhorting someone with Lincoln'spersonality to turn away from solitude would be to try to divert him from a centralsource of comfort and strength. Lincoln balanced his capacity for friendship withdeep intellectual interests and overriding social commitments. All three gavemeaning to his life. Finding that balance was probably easier because Lincolncould also feel and express love through the quality of empathy, generouslyshared.

[6] Maintaining humility in the face of mystery.

No one can begin to learn from Lincoln's life and personality withoutunderstanding his humility about ultimate knowledge. At a more superficial level,in terms of recognizing his own intellectual powers, Lincoln was far from humble.In this context his "rail splitter" image has the feel of being an artifice--anamusing deception he probably enjoyed. But on deeper matters of religion andfaith he genuinely seemed to suspend judgment. Man could not know. And for allman does know every event in life was determined long ago. An approving crowdmay have admired the religious tone in Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, butit was religion of a different sort than many of them heard in church:

Each [side in the war] looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamentaland astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and eachinvokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dareto ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of othermen's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of bothcould not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almightyhas His own purposes (emphasis supplied).

Lincoln's God was distant and impenetrable. Yet each person remains morallyresponsible. At one level this perspective is confusing and frightening. At anotherit's reassuring. We have a duty to do our best. Peace comes with the lucidawareness that any final judgment about whether we have failed our succeededwill be made by a power greater than our own. The Universe is not ours tomanage--and we should be eternally thankful it isn't.


10/12

[7] Refocusing the mind: the role of work and humor.

A consistent theme in Lincoln's life is his deliberate management of mental focus.This is a form of cognitive therapy before the term was invented. Shenk andbiographer Ward H. Lamon cited an example in an 1842 letter from Lincoln toSpeed:

I think if I were you, in case my mind were not exactly right, I would avoid beingidle. I would immediately engage in some business, or go to making preparationsfor it.

More useful practical advice would be hard to find. Again, the fundamentalunderstanding (contrary to Freudian perspectives) is that the mind turned

"outward" to worthy pursuits is likely to shape a more desirable, bearable, andsustainable interior landscape.

Lincoln also used humor as a diversion. Carl Sandburg quoted one contemporaryobserver who didn't understand this dynamic (and who must have been blind tothe melancholy on Lincoln's face) as saying "[c]an this man Lincoln ever beserious?"

There were times when Lincoln's humor was simply good-natured fun. Sandburgtold the story of "[a] newly elected Congressman [who] came in, [and] Lincoln

knowing him to have a sense of humor, [said] 'Come in here and tell me what youknow. It won't take long.'" On other occasions Lincoln's humor had a morepointed edge. The following example comes, again, from Sandburg:

[Lincoln asked General McClellan why heavy gun emplacements were locatednorth of Washington]. McClellan replied: 'Why, Mr. President, if under anycircumstances, however fortuitous, the enemy, by any chance or freak, should inthe last resort get behind Washington in his efforts to capture the city, why, thereis the fort to defend it.' The precaution, said the President, reminded him of a

lyceum [public hall] in Springfield. 'The question [up for debate] was, 'Why doesman have breasts?' and after long debate was submitted to the presiding judgewho wisely decided 'that under any circumstances, however fortuitous, or by anychance or freak, no matter what he nature or by what the cause, a man shouldhave a baby, there would be the breasts to nurse it.'


11/12

Sandburg and most other Lincoln scholars saw Lincoln's humor for what a was: awise and practiced form of diversion. This final example from Sandburg highlightsthat insight:

On the day after [the lost battle at] Fredericksburg the staunch old friend, IssacN. Arnold, entered Lincoln's office and was asked to sit down. Lincoln then read[a joke from a book by the humorist] Artemus Ward. . . That Lincoln should wishto read this nonsense while the ambulances were yet hauling thousands ofwounded from the frozen mud flats of the Rappahannock River was amazing toCongressman Arnold. As he said afterward he was 'shocked.' He inquired, 'Mr.President, is it possible that with the whole land bowed in sorrow and coveredwith a pall in the presence of yesterday's fearful reverse, you can indulge in suchlevity?' Then, Arnold said, the President threw down the Artemus Ward book,tears streamed down his cheeks, his physical frame quivered as he burst forth,

'Mr. Arnold, if I could not get momentary respite from the crushing burden I amconstantly carrying, my heart would break!' And with that pent-up cry let out, itcame over Arnold that the laughter of Lincoln at times was a mask.

[8] Learning from failure. Widespread in popular literature is the "Lincoln'sFailures" list. One version includes the following examples:

1832 defeated for state legislature 1833 failed in business 1836 nervous breakdown 1843 defeated for nomination to Congress 1849 rejected for land officer 1854 defeated for U.S. Senate 1856 defeated in run for nomination for Vice-President 1858 defeated for Senate again 1860 elected President of the United States

These lists are deficient because they fail to mention corresponding successes.Nonetheless, any two or three such failures might be sufficient to derail a careeror a life. Lincoln persisted. He persisted, in part, because he defined a highergoal beyond his own success or failure. With that goal in mind he became apractitioner of "wise failure." Each defeat, properly understood, providedknowledge and experience for subsequent success.

Contemporary students often lack skills in adapting to and learning from failure.For some the first B- in college represents the end of all hope. How can


12/12

educators help? The best place to start is with candid discussion of our personalexperiences in learning how to fail wisely. Ken Bain makes this point in his bookWhat the Best College Teachers Do (2004):

Highly effective teachers tend to reflect a strong trust in students . . .They oftendisplay openness with students and may, from time to time, talk about their ownintellectual journey, its ambitions, triumphs, frustrations, and failures, andencourage their students to be similarly reflective and candid. They may discusshow they developed their interests, the major obstacles they faced in masteringthe subject, or some of their secrets for learning particular material. They oftendiscuss openly and enthusiastically their own sense of awe and curiosity aboutlife. Above all, they tend to treat students with what can only be called simpledecency (emphasis supplied).

A concluding suggestion

Two years ago, in a Time Magazine article, Barack Obama provided a wonderfulshort summary of the message Lincoln's life can convey:

What I marvel at, what gives me such hope, is that this man could overcomedepression, self-doubt and the constraints of biography and not only actdecisively but retain his humanity. Like a figure from the Old Testament, hewandered the earth, making mistakes, loving his family but causing them pain,despairing over the course of events, trying to divine God's will. He did not know

how things would turn out, but he did his best.

We learn better from example than by precept. For many students, Lincoln'sskillful adaptations to a mental disorder are hiding in plain sight. Educators canbring those skills alive by discussion, elaboration, and reiteration, or simply by

joining students in reading a suitable book (e.g. Shenck's Lincoln's Melancholy).Doing so would also convey an important underlying message: Students withmental disabilities can be part of the creative diversity colleges seek to promote.The first step toward fulfilling that goal, especially after the horrific events on thiscampus three months ago, is to refuse to be guided by our fears.

Resources

turning depression into wisdom: what lincoln can teach contemporary college studentson

Documents